Don’t misunderstand Hach. The Alta business owner agrees with President Barack Obama on many issues, including that partisan discord in Washington, D.C., is keeping leaders from the work needed to improve the economy.

But Hach, who had breakfast with the president in Guttenberg, doubts that congressional leaders have the bipartisan will needed to work together to stabilize the economy.

“We need leaders who are willing to stand up and take care of voters and not just their party,” said Hach, who owns Anemometry Specialists, a company that helps businesses decide where to best locate wind turbines.

“Politics is definitely a hurdle,” said Hach. “I think we could make a difference if we could focus on the problems in the economy.”

President Barack Obama told about 300 Iowans that government does “some boneheaded things … that need to be fixed.”

“Our task as a nation has to be to get behind what you’re doing,” Obama told business leaders participating in the rural economic forum at Northeast Iowa Community College.

“Our task has to be making sure that nothing stands in your way, that we remove any obstacles to your success,” the president said.

Hach said companies like his are “sitting on cash,” unwilling to spend it to upgrade equipment or hire employees because of uncertainty about the economy.

Hach said he would hire five workers and buy a couple of new trucks and machinery if the economy stabilized.

Debi Durham, Iowa’s economic development leader, said she hopes new initiatives the president announced this week to help small businesses are effective.

The White House said it will double the capital available to small businesses in rural America, work to better attract investors to rural startups, invest up to $510 million in advanced fuel development, and work to improve rural health care and employment.

“Capital is certainly an issue,” said Durham. “But like anything, it’s all in the details.”

What starts as a good idea can get bogged down in bureaucracy, she said.

“Then we don’t get the money where it needs to go,” Durham said. “Everybody can talk the talk. But they have to walk the walk.”

Mike Sexton, owner of Manure Works, a Rockwell City startup that helps farmers keep records on manure applications, said efforts to bring investment to rural startups is critical.

“Venture capital companies aren’t interested in you unless you have revenue over $1 million,” he said.

“It’s not just the capital that businesses need,” he said. “It’s the support services as well.”

Sexton said a small investment in rural Iowa businesses can make a tremendous difference. Rural startups hire a half dozen workers or fewer. “But that’s kids in our schools, shops on Main Street, people in our churches,” he said.

Obama described rural America as struggling for a decade or more, “getting by with fewer customers, fewer shifts and less money in tips.”

He told leaders that the nation’s recovery “isn’t going to be driven by Washington.”

“It’s going to be driven by folks like here in Iowa,” Obama said before hosting a rural economic forum in Peosta.

“America will come back from this recession stronger than before. I believe this.”